London firefighters have condemned a “stupid and extremely dangerous” trend sweeping America that involves people setting fire to the spray from an aerosol can.

London Fire Brigade are concerned the ‘fire spray challenge’ may spread to the UK and are asking parents to talk to their children about fire safety.

There have been more than 4,000 posts on Instagram using the hashtag #firespraychallenge and more than 14,000 people are following @firechallenge, according to the brigade.

Mark Hazelton, the brigade’s group manager for community safety, said: "A number of young people in the States think that it's clever and funny to set fire to aerosol cans and post videos of the experiment on social media, but I can assure you it's not, it's really stupid and extremely dangerous.

"It could lead to severe burns and could cause a serious fire, especially as many of the videos appear to show young people starting these fires in their own homes.

"There is apparently no limit to the lengths some people will go to in order to gain popularity on social media.

“It concerns me that these crazes sometimes spread across the Atlantic so I'd encourage parents over here to talk to their children about how dangerous it is to set fire to anything, let alone the highly flammable contents of an aerosol can."